HP TouchPad pulled from Harvey Norman Australia

As most are aware, HP had overnight announced that they would be discontinuing webOS, and naturally this was a shock to many – potential customers, current owners of HP’s webOS tablet, the TouchPad, as well as retailers who may have placed huge orders on the TouchPad.

While some retailers have decided to hold on to stock and see how things unravel over the new couple of days/weeks, Harvey Norman in Australia was reported to have already pulled the TouchPad off their shelves due to the uncertain future of the webOS platform.

According to Harvey Norman Australia’s general manager of Computers, Ben McIntosh, who spoke to ZDNet Australia:

“I’m taking a very proactive view on this, rather than waiting and waiting […] Because I can’t be sure that webOS won’t be supported ongoing, I’ve instructed my franchisees to take the TouchPad off the shelves. Not because HP told me to, just because we can’t be sure if they’re going to [be supported in future].”

Given that Harvey Norman Australia ordered 6,000 units of the TouchPad, we’re guessing that this will definitely hurt their sales. Interestingly enough, Ben McIntosh mentioned that the TouchPad was doing surprisingly well and have sold 1,000-1,200 units during the first four days of the tablet being made available.

Customers are now being offered full refunds or full store credit if they wish to jump to another tablet, while customers who are still holding on to their TouchPads have until HP makes a decision on the future of webOS to claim their refund.